Blog of Michael John Smith. I am seeking the truth behind the conspiracy that led to my conviction under the UK Official Secrets Act. E-mail me at parellic@googlemail.com

12 October 2006

Criminal Prosecution Service CPS trial witness list

On 15 September 1993, the week before my trial started, the CPS (Criminal Prosecution Service) issued a document presenting the list of witnesses who were likely to appear at my trial. Not all these witnesses actually appeared, but what it did show was that the CPS was using some considerable deception to disguise the case they finally presented to the jury. This was a cynical attempt to distort the truth, and to play mind games with the jury. The inevitable result of this approach was that a miscarriage of justice was in the process of being deployed; although at that time how could I have known what an appalling misrepresentation would be employed in the courtroom?

The contents of this witness list is set out below, which was a five page document faxed to Richard Glenister, the man at the CPS who was pulling the strings behind the scenes. The document was faxed to Glenister at telephone number 071 329 8171 on 16 September. The numbers to the right of the names are the page numbers of the statements issued by each witness.

9 comments:

I guess Richard Glenister must be around 60 now, although I have never met him.

Glenister appears to have played a key part in my case, and was very much on the side of the Prosecution. I even have a copy of a letter from Glenister, ordering my lawyers not to give me copies of any of the case papers. This was clearly unfair and designed to hamper my Defence, because how could I properly instruct my lawyers if I was not completely familiar with what the witnesses were saying and what exhibits and documents would be used at the trial.

Glenister cannot be a fair man from what I can see, because he did everything to promote the Prosecution case, and must have been involved in distorting innocent evidence to make it appear sinister. People like Glenister are little better than professional deceivers, and certainly hypocrites, because they would never accept such biased evidence if they were on the receiving end.

If the Richard Glenister I speak of is your father, then all I can say is that I believe I am speaking the truth, and I do not withdraw one word of what I have printed.

It is perfectly true that your father ordered my lawyers not to issue me with any of my case papers, which he must have known would prejudice my defence. It was only the common sense of my QC, Mr Rock Tansey, in disobeying that order which gave me any chance of preparing instructions for my lawyers. So, I expect that Rock Tansey also found your father's approach draconian, to say the least.

I only discovered about a year ago that the evidence of Prosecution witness Professor Meirion Lewis was more or less a lie, in that the evidence he gave about the key exhibit could not be true, because it was an obsolete document in 1984, and so could not have been used on ALARM missiles deployed in the 1991 Gulf War.

Are you seriously suggesting that your father could not have known that this key exhibit was obsolete, and that it was being misrepresented in a Crown Court trial at the Old Bailey? Certainly his Prosecution team had a well-rehearsed set of questions that were aimed at proving to the jury that this document was (in fact) used on ALARM missiles deployed in 1991. That is why I call your father a 'hypocrite' and a 'professional deceiver' - what else am I expected to think?

We could go on and discuss how the CPS turned my innocent visit to Oporto (in 1977) into a KGB training mission, when in fact the information they had received from MI5 was that this training mission was believed to be a trip to Lisbon in 1979 (which I never made). Again, your father authorised false evidence to go to court to my detriment.

Possibly your father is a pillar of the twisted community he associates himself with. It is a pity that they cannot see him with the same insight I have gained from the role he played in my case.

And incidentally - perhaps my education was not as good as yours - but I was always taught not to call somebody Mr Richard Glenister Esq - you either use a Mr or an Esq, unless standards have slipped since I went to school.

Yes I did appeal, back in 1995. But at that time I was unaware of the evidence that had been withheld from my trial, and as a result it was impossible to argue the grounds I could have used if I known all the facts. My lawyers told me that there was no chance to find the technical expert we needed, and at the time I had to accept that I was snookered.

In 1998 I made an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and after much argument, mainly because the CCRC refused to properly investigate issues I had raised, they finally rejected my application in July of 2008. For much of that 10 years I was waiting for responses from the CCRC.

I know that false evidence was used at my trial, and it seems unethical to me to accept that my trial could have been "fair". Therefore, I shall continue to pursue the outstanding matters for as long as it takes to resolve them satisfactorily.

Although I have been referred to in several books, there has been no specific book that describes my case in detail. The Portuguese journalist Frederico Duarte Carvalho has a book in preparation, but at this time there is no plan for it to be published.

A number of journalists have shown an interest in my case, but something always seemed to go wrong when they tried to investigate. Whether they were warned off, or were concerned about upsetting the Establishment I am not sure, but it is odd that journalists have avoided my case in the past.

In 1996 I was visited by a journalist from the Evening Standard, and she prepared a lengthy article for publication in that paper. Unfortunately this coincided with Max Hastings taking over as Editor, and he decided not to run the story.

I seem to have had more success abroad, possibly because this is away from the influence of MI5, and Frederico Duarte Carvalho has run at least two articles about my case in Portuguese journals. Cryptome and Cold War Times are among the websites who are also happy to publish information about my case.

In 2007 a reporter from a local newspaper ran a three page article about me. But this also demonstrated some of the problems trying to describe the large amount of convoluted detail that surrounds my case. The CPS threw just about every piece of information they could find into my trial, making it so complicated that it takes a very dedicated person to simply read through all the documents created during the case.

I can't help feeling that somebody is pulling strings behind the scenes, because my photo and name used to appear in newspapers on a regular basis in the 1990s and early 2000s - every time there was a reference to espionage cases.

Following my release from prison, and my campaign to challenge my conviction, no paper now seems to remember me at all, and I have been treated like my trial never happened. I even had to take 3 newspapers to the PCC in 2007, for claiming that the Daniel James case was the first OSA case since Michael Bettany in the early 1980s.